Kingdom Hearts III

I already had a broad idea of the series storyline thanks to having done varying amounts of hours on pretty much every other entry at one point or another but still made sure to watch all the contained archive videos and two youtube storyline overviews as a catch up before beginning on Kingdom Hearts III, which is an utterly ridiculous requirement for any game.

It's really hard to break down the experience of playing Kingdom Hearts III by talking about what's new because really the answer is not much. Pretty much everything about the game is exactly as it was in past entries which makes it really eyebrow raising as to why it took two generations and a protracted development to end up with what we have here.

You have a tutorial sequence that plays out the same as always before making your way into the first kingdom, Olympus. Not really sure on why the series likes Hercules so much, it's not the best way to open the game personally especially when you have DeVito's character in but don't pay for him to come back so he's mute. I'm, I think, right at the very end of the Toy Story world at the moment with each world taking about 2 hours to complete. The gameplay is the same as ever, a bit more fluid but still plagued by a ropey lock on and bad camera.

Visually I'm not sure mixed bag could cover it enough. Sometimes there'll be a section and it looks utterly lovely, other times it could be another remaster of the PS2 games running on your screen. There's some nice spit and polish going on at times but broadly this isn't a system pusher and the level design and sense of world building is incredibly dated and simplistic. In terms of design KH3 is incredibly focused on fitting with the past entries which means it lacks any ambition to significantly move things forward to a place a late PS4 gen title should be and it's amazing the fanbase let's it get away with so much still, but that should be obvious given the poor way it's been dolled out for years now.

So, it looks... okay and plays... okay. Audio? Exactly like the PS2 games also. Sometimes there's a nice overture, other times complete and utterly out of place silence, voice acting is literally all over the place as well ranging from the good to the abysmal. The less the focus is on returning Disney characters the more worse it gets essentially, Square's own characters still proving to be the dull link and KH3 oddly - yet probably wisely - seems to be avoiding references to its own series so far this time.

So that leaves the story, well, so far - for the most part - there isn't one. Xehanort pops up on occasion and Sora is trying to get his powers back and... that's it so far. Doesn't stop the game having a cutscene every 30 seconds though.

I don't know - I'm enjoying it but I imagine it's on the basis many do which is the occasional and very often underused Disney nods. If it weren't for the inclusion of the Disney brand it's all too obvious the series would be long dead. KH3 works for those nods and for a supposed bit of closer but so far it's an incredibly dated experience and if Square continues with its intention to make a fourth game one day I hope they find a hell of a lot better direction for it.

I'm now about 2/3rds of the way through the game, hitting close to halfway through Frozen and as things stand it's starting to get old. The level design is really archaic, each world is typically an area that recreates a scene from a Disney film and then corridor after corridor fighting wave after wave. There's still cutscenes every few feet travelled but storyline wise there's still next to nothing to the story. Serviceable is the best word for KH3

You have played about 10 games (including RDR2) in the time it has taken me to finish the RDR2 story! That somehow includes monsters like this. You also watch more films and TV than I do AND have more kids. How do you do it?!

I'm actually way behind where I want to be, far too many short SNK games lately and RDR2 took be 4 months

I'm finding KH3 to be much easier than the previous games, there's a very low need to grind unless you chose the high difficulty. It leans that bit more into being a corridor based hack n slash. In the end though it looks like it'll have taken about 20hrs at the current rate. But mainly - lunch breaks and before work at my desk on the Switch lol

The series has always intrigued me but I didn't have a PS2 (I was a salty Sega fanboy) so have no nostalgia for it. At 35 I feel I may be too old to get into it, with the cringy bits. The baby may enjoy it in a few years though!

KH3 sure looks current gen from the bits I've seen. Shame it doesnt play that way.

It's just been knocked around for two generations and KH3 doesn't reflect that time, it's a very dated gaming experience. As much appeal as KH carries, if it weren't for the Disney licensing it would have died a very long time ago. When they move onto the next chapter, for me, KH needs to join the modern era

I've finished this on the One X and have to say that I really enjoyed the game. however the story line that didn't feature Disney characters board the sh!t out of me. It was tough to follow and to be quite honest extremely drawn out and boring. The Disney sections mind you were great.

Honestly, I feel like the storyline is really simple but if feels hard to follow because there's so many cutscenes and player interest in them is so low that you find yourself not taking it in properly. I'm on the Big Hero 6 world now, I was so glad that the Pirate's ship levelling was 100% unrequired. From what I can gather I'm getting towards the end of this current world and only the finale to go so nearly there

Finished it last night and I think I'd be willing to concede a 7/10 score for the game but by the power of Greyskull... the game has an absolutely horrid finale. The Disney aspects fall by the wayside as the game indulges in ages and ages of dry, drab cutscenes as well as dull boss fights and its own dislikeable cast. Then it also wraps things up for the most part but in a very... dull ending.